


Beautiful Creatures (Cannot Be Confined)

by IcyEarth



Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Angst, Campbell Soup, Cheating, Domestic Violence, F/F, F/M, Physical Abuse, domestic abuse, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 07:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19246717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcyEarth/pseuds/IcyEarth
Summary: You can’t keep her in a cage, clip her wings, tell her lies, say that fragile birds were never meant to fly.Watch her live behind a rusted door, latched tight, her spirit slipping away so you can keep her in sight.Beautiful creatures cannot be confined.Her wings will grow, she’ll find the sky.-Christy Ann Martine





	1. Her Wings Will Grow

**Author's Note:**

> Two things  
> A) I wasn’t sure what to rate this, so if it needs to be higher let me know  
> B) The reading playlist is here: https://open.spotify.com/user/fi6vd9eq3ym260jgim8gz0qsk/playlist/4LjjirlUIPZqVKwWSURcB4?si=hsUl5Di9Q-OeueMC-KB6uQ

The town thinks she’s insane. Elle already knows they do. And this?

 

This is going to make it so, so much worse. 

 

The _C_ burnt into her is scabbing over on her arm and it’s getting crazy itchy. She wants so scratch all her skin off, peel it back until she doesn’t feel dirty any more. Doesn’t feel fucking gross any more. He makes her feel disgusting.

 

Elle only has two long sleeve shirts and three jackets, not like she can wear them during the summer anyway. Summer, that’s a funny thought. Elle isn’t even sure she’ll live through the week, much less all the way through winter.

 

And since he’d seen Elle with Luke outside the church, he’d thought she was cheating on him. Elle rarely even left the house other then to go to church. She wasn’t religious in any way, but it was the only time she could see Helena, and now, Luke. The last time she’d been anywhere other then his house and the church had been the supermarket, where he’d seen her talking to Allie. Elle doesn’t like to think about Allie.

 

And when she went to church Elle liked to dress up, which put long sleeves out of the question in the summer. People would see the  _ C _ , and they would think she was a freak who branded herself with her boyfriend’s initial. Helena and Luke would hate her.

 

Or the even worse possibility. He doesn’t let her go to church any more. Elle honestly doesn't know what she’ll do if that happens. Die, maybe. Live, definitely not. Can you even be dead while your breathing?

 

If Elle loses Helena and Luke, she’ll get to find out.

 

The smell of something burning pulls Elle out of her thought process and back into his spotless kitchen filled with the smell of bleach and blood. The chicken Elle’s cooking is smoking. She really did like cooking, she just hated cooking for him. Once upon a time, when she used to dream of getting away from him, she used to imagine she was cooking for Helena, and it made her enjoy making him meals. Pretending was almost impossible now.

 

Elle moves across the kitchen in an almost lethargic way, because honestly, she doesn't care if the house burns down anymore. The only thing she really cares about now is church. Ironic, considering what god’s done to her. This hell she calls a life.

 

The chicken is actually mostly fine, and the small burnt portion Elle can easily carve off and throw in the compost. The inside of the oven, however, is significantly less fine. It has a large black patch above where the chicken was sitting. Elle can either have a warm dinner ready for when he comes home, or she can have the oven clean. She can’t possibly do both when it’s already five thirty.

 

Elle decides to have dinner ready and clean the oven the next day. It isn’t ideal, but he hasn’t cooked a day in his life, so Elle thinks she’ll be safe for tonight.

 

Elle is very, very wrong.

 

He’s more angry then Elle has pretty much every seen him when he finds out.

 

“Cheating on me, lying to be, wrecking my house. How fucking dare you, you piece of shit,” His voice is weird and quiet, like it always is when he’s really mad. Elle stares a patch off wall just over his right shoulder, turning every word over in her mind. Just because he isn’t wrong doesn’t mean Elle wants to hear it.

 

_ ‘Luke wouldn’t say things like that to you’  _ The stupid little voice in the back of Elle’s head whispers. She knows it’s true, too. Helena told her that when she and Luke fight, they give each other some space, have a conversation a few hours later, and they try their hardest to not let the other go to sleep mad. That system didn’t always work, but even when it didn’t, they were fair and kind to each other.

 

Elle never goes to sleep mad, usually just scared. He’s always mad. Even if Elle didn’t know it then, he’d been mad since the day they met. Maybe since the day he was born.

 

His slap is like a splash of cold water. Elle zoned out on him, and he hated it when she did that. She reels back, her hands coming up to clutch her stinging cheek, tears instinctually coming to her eyes. She doesn’t let them fall.

 

He wouldn't care even if she did.

 

The next two hours pass in a haze of pain and apologies for things Elle hasn’t done yet. Mostly for cheating on him, but in there somewhere he accuses her of trying to murder him.

 

One broken rib, two black eyes and split lip later, she’s cleaning up in the powder room off the master bedroom. The rib she’s already wrapped, and the eyes have had anti inflammatory gel put on them. 

 

He told her he’s staying with a friend, aka the girl he’s been cheating on her with for two months, a chick from high school named Lexie. In high school she’d been a hoarder. A lot has changed since high school. For example, everything. 

 

Elle knows about her, and honestly she feels a little bad for Lexie. She clearly has no idea what she’s getting into. No one does.

 

Elle would warn her, but Elle can’t admit she knows Lexie exists. That would open a whole can of worms about Luke that Elle doesn't want to deal with. He’s never played fair, but at least his rules are mostly consistent.

 

Mostly.

 

He comes back two hours later, laughing his drunk laugh. The door slams, and Elle hears not one, but two pairs of feet coming up the stairs. He brought someone home? That’s low, even for him. 

 

She puts a tissue currently being used as a bookmark in her Chrissy Ann Martine book, the last Christmas present her mother had gotten her.

 

Elle listens more closely to the footsteps on the hardwood stairs. They’re fast but stumbly. He got drunk with that  _ bitch _ , and now he’s making out with her on his staircase. Right outside the room Elle is currently in. 

 

A knock comes on the wall right next to the door.

 

“You have thirty seconds to get out of my house. Don’t stay with Luke or I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll see you at the diner tomorrow at eight for breakfast. We need to talk,” His speech is slurred and almost mumbley, but Elle knows he’ll still remember this conversation tomorrow. Elle has bigger things to worry about though.

 

He’s never kicked her out before, and Elle has no idea where she’ll go. Her parents are out of the question, her dad made it pretty clear he didn’t want her to come back after she came out as pan. He doesn’t let her have friends, or anyone other then him.

 

As Elle stumbles out into the cool early November air, she panics. She has nowhere to go. Nowhere at all.

 

And she doesn’t have her makeup.

 


	2. She’ll Find The Sky

She wanders for about half an hour, clutching her book to her chest. The only thing other then the book she’d been able to grab as she rushed out the door was a thin hoodie and her flip flops, and the temperature is falling fast. Her rib aches, a blister is forming on her right foot, and she’s cold.

 

Life’s great.

 

Elle finds herself outside the church as the last streaks of light finally fade from the sky. It must have been a doozy of a sunset for dusk to have lasted this long.

 

Helena will have left by now, even though she’s the priest and usually the last one there at night and the first one there in the morning. The inside is dark, and there’s no way she can walk to Helena’s house without knowing for sure she’ll be well received.

 

But the overhang of the back door will offer some protection, and the sun will wake her up in time to get to the diner. Elle just has to hope Helena comes in through the front door, and no one comes in through the back until the sun has firmly risen and Elle has left.

 

When Elle has finally picked her way to the back of the church, stopping momentarily to stare at the high school that ruined her life. She really did hate everything about that place. The teachers were mean, the kids were meaner. Helena was mean to her in high school. Things had changed since high school, but maybe not enough.

 

She doesn’t get any warning before she’s being jabbed in the sides, and it seems like it’d be friendly if Elle didn’t have a broken rib. She doubles over in pain, throwing up bile into the grass in front of her. Tear stains streaking her cheeks get a fresh coat.

 

“Elle, oh my gosh! Are you okay? What happened?” Helena is helping her sit down on the grass, and she’s seen Elle’s face.

 

“I’m fine, it’s nothing. Do you think you could let me sleep in the church tonight though?” Elle gives Helena her best ‘I’m in pain do what I say’ face, which admittedly had never been that good.

 

“How about I take you to the clinic and let Kelly take a look at you?” Elle winces for two reasons. The first being the price. Elle had never had a job, and he wasn’t about to start forking out cash for clinic visits. The second was that Kelly hadn’t liked Elle in school at all. Not that anyone had.

 

Neither of these reasons was the reason Helena thought it was. Helena thought she was wincing was because she hurt, and hurt people wince.

 

“It’s decided, we’re going to the clinic. Come on,” Helena reaches out a hand to help Elle up, and despite her better judgment, Elle accepts.

 

“I can’t afford the clinic,” Elle admits quietly as they pick their way through the weed filled parking lot to Helena’s car. It’s a beat up grey Toyota Corolla, the same one Luke has driven since he got his license when he was sixteen. Helena and Luke share it now, the town being small enough to not justify having two cars.

 

“I know,” Helena doesn’t look at her as she climbs into the passenger side of the car. Elle doesn’t risk putting the seat belt over her rib, knowing Helena won’t go over twenty miles an hour anyway.

 

“I’m paying,” Helena’s tone doesn’t leave room for argument. Elle wouldn’t push it even if it did. She hadn’t been to a doctor in over a year. It might do her some good.

 

“And then you’re going to come home with me, and tomorrow were going to make a plan. But you’re not going back. No way,” Helena has the car started, but she isn’t doing anything. She’s looking straight ahead out the windshield. Tears stream down her cheeks, but she doesn’t show any other signs of crying.

 

“You know I can’t, Helena,” Elle is crying now too, but she’s sobbing. “I want to, I do. But he’ll kill you,”

 

“We’ll get a restraining order. If we take him to court, we’ll win. Elle,  _ please _ ,” Helena reaches out with her right hand, the one unadorned with her wedding ring, and smooths out Elle’s hair.

 

Shakily, Elle whispers out,

 

“Okay,”


End file.
